[MrL_JaKiri]

I feel that most of the actual points of argument are clearly covered in my earlier posts, and dante's posts, so I will be, to a larger degree than normal, critique the way in which you argue.

Originally Posted by horn

i'm not sure being able to do more things when alive than dead equates to a self evident truism that it is desirable to be alive.

If you are alive you can choose to be dead. If you are dead you cannot choose to be alive, or indeed anything at all. If you have, as a base situation, everyone alive, then i nterms of their individiaul status people will be able to actually get what they want much more.

I mean, if you assume everyone should be dead the only people who would be happy (in an abstract sense, as they'd be dead) are the people who wanted to be dead anyway, and they can die quite easily if they start out alive.

Originally Posted by horn

why then would you not extend this "right to life" to animals? simply because they cannot explain in english that they do not wish to die?

Spanish people generally can't explain in english why they don't wish to die, this is a bit of a red herring. In any case, I haven't seen any indication that animals would prefer to be alive than dead, other than in a macroscopic example of the outcome of the "Selfish gene" concept. If you apply them to animals, why don't you apply the same concepts to genes, I might ask. And do.

Originally Posted by horn

and if for whatever reason it was guranteed to you that you could not be disproportionately disadvantaged (divine intervention or whatever), would you still hold this as a moral axiom? and if so, why?

That doesn't change the system at all. If everyone had divine intervention on their side, then the system would be fair. If only one person had divine intervention on their side, then it's just the same as any other benefit. What exactly do you count as divine intervention? That you live a life of luxury and sloth? Any benefit I can think of pretty much already exists in one form or another, either by rich parents, or some element of luck (or whatever) so how you think this changes the reasoning, I'm not quite sure.

Originally Posted by horn

yet it is a "selfish" reason you give for the veil of ignorance proposition in the first place. i.e. the gurantee of not being "disproportionately disadvanted". Is it not simply due to rational thought that you are curtailing one gut reaction for another?

I gave the "selfish reasoning", as it were, because throughout the thread you only seem to understand selfish motives. Which is why I expressed it the way that I did; the language I used clearly meant that I was referring to the selfish reasoning to the exclusion of others, not that it was all that existed.

Originally Posted by horn

putting on my cartesian subjectivity hat and empiricist wizard socks for a moment i put to you that the desire to continue living, the desire for "freedom" etc are indeed gut reactions (although this term would probably need to be reworded/redefined).

You talk to me about empiricism? You think that I don't consider empirical methodology? Are you blind? Are you mad? Are you unable to read?

And no, the predicate that I put forward is not just the "desire to continue living" as you seem to think it is, as I have expressed previously, both in this post and elsewhere.

Originally Posted by horn

yes it will still have been originally based on gut feelings but the pejorative association with rash action i don't think is a fair one. the potential for "rational analysis" is huge and would certainly undermine a great many actions that could be taken otherwise unchecked.

I refer the honourable gentlemen to my previous utterances on the subject.

Originally Posted by horn

i don't understand this bit, "Instead of the right to punch "someone" in the face, you get the right to punch "me" in the face" ?

If you're basing your argument against it upon the uniqueness of punching a person in the face then you're talking about punching that specific person in the face, because you specifically stated that it was different, both mentally and tactilely, from punching another person in the face. The "me" part came about because it was much easier to, as I have been doing a fair amount throughout, use myself as an example, partially because it's much shorter to write.

Originally Posted by horn

the gut reactions aren't so much being likened here to a filter system, they are more the foundations/axioms for a moral paradigm that is "filtered" with rational analysis.
strawman the people cry!

Not a strawman, it was just you misreading it (which to some extent is fair enough, it's a case of large animal hospital).

And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

Originally Posted by horn

no matter how it's measured? can you even quantify what it is you suggest we're measuring?

(Measurements don't have to be quantitative actions)

Originally Posted by horn

"abstract thought" is a pretty ambiguous term.

Once again, I have made the mistaken assumption that you had done any investigation into what you were talking about.

Over the past decades scientistics have been doing many experiments (on rats, on birds, on dolphins, on dogs, on cats, on chimps and apes and many others) to test for abstract cognitive ability. I didn't feel the need to specify exactly what I was talking about because there are quite so many already, and I had thought you would have encountered, in your myriad of forays into background reading about the topic, at least some of them.

Originally Posted by horn

and those with brain damage/birth defects* who cannot outwit chimpy...
are they then excluded from your love?

Depends on the case, and indeed the severity. Heavily autistic people, for example, are in cases extremely capable of abstract thought. The term "idiot savant" springs to mind.

[quote=horn]i'm not sure language is the only identifier of cognitive development.[/quote

It is not, however it is generally regarded as one of the simplest, and therefore best, tests for abstract cognitive thought. The ability to make the connection between, say, the word "rock" and a rock is apparantly something of

Originally Posted by horn

are you seriously suggesting a 2 week year old child has the same cognitive abilities as a fully grown chimp?

That depends what you mean. Studies have shown that chimps have a fairly good grasp of some things (such as social structures, which may well have been a kick-start to mental growth in general, but that's a debate for another time) but occasionally have extremely poor grasps of others. Depending on the kind of test, I suspect that two week old children and adult chimps may well both fall off the lower end of the scale.

This isn't really important, however.

Originally Posted by horn

you said no when i offered you three options.

Two (less/equal or more), and yes, you chose the right one. I should really have specified.

Originally Posted by horn

*god knows what you've included in this category

Abnormalities which have an effect on cognition which aren't genetically based.